etrianfandomcom-20200214-history
Nightseeker
Nightseekers are the vicious cousins of the Dark Hunter class from previous games, Nightseekers are deadly assassins that excel at crippling and killing targets. Overview Drawing parallels to the Dark Hunters in the first two games, the Nightseeker's stock and trade is the ability to throw envenomed knives with the ability to inflict all manner of status effects on foes, paired with lethal close-combat skills that become even stronger against ailment-afflicted enemies. Rounding out their skills, they are the only class capable of using two weapons at once with the ability Blade Flurry, as well as the only class that can cause skills to activate more than once with Follow Trace. Because their damage increases considerably when an enemy is under the effects of a status effect, their damage output is among the highest in the game if built correctly, capable of matching the likes of Bushi, Snipers, and Imperials - if the target is under a status effect, at least. *'Strengths:' Incredible offenses paired with highest Agility of all classes. *'Weaknesses:' Low HP and Vitality stats shorten front row lifespan; dependent on landing ailments for maximum damage output. Gameplay Nightseekers are really fast. Their Agility is the highest of all classes in the games they appear in. Their raw damage output is not as stellar, but their signature passives bestow an enormous damage multiplier when attacking an enemy with an ailment. To this end, their Strength and Luck combined allow the Nightseeker to inflict ailments easily and tear any ailing enemy to shreds. To compensate, though, Nightseekers are very fragile, having poor HP and Vitality. This can lead to them dying a lot on the front lines. This implicitly teaches the player the effectiveness of positioning, and that changing rows doesn't consume a turn. Ideally, a Nightseeker would spend the opening turns of a battle hidden in the back row and disabling enemies with their Throw skills, before moving up to the front to assassinate anything with an ailment. Nightseekers are compatible with either swords or knives. The former delivers more raw damage; the latter further raises their act speed. Pick and equip according to your team's needs. There is nothing stopping you from equipping both with Blade Flurry, but plan your tactics to compensate for the lost armor slot. It takes some time, however, before a Nightseeker reaches their true potential. Within the Novice skills are Sand Throw and Nerve Throw, which inflict lasting ailments that impair an enemy's ability to act or even hit - this drastically improves the Nightseeker's survivability on the front once the ailments land. Shadow Cloak is a possible early investment to help offset their fragility, though it quickly becomes preferable to reallocate skill points invested there once the other skill pages become available. At Veteran, the Nightseeker's damage potential then starts to skyrocket. Shadow Bite is an easy combat staple for delivering incredible damage numbers on ailing enemies, and can outright annihilate anything put to sleep with Sleep Throw. Assassinate is also great for deleting resilient targets. Spread Throw also becomes available for inflicting ailments en masse. The Master skills help the Nightseeker reach peak performance. Foul Mastery gives them a stacking attack bonus for each ailment they inflict, which combos perfectly well with Spread Throw on crowded battlefields. Follow Trace is an amazing skill that lets a Nightseeker randomly increase their damage output as they see fit. Venom Throw inflicts an incredibly deadly poison which lets a Nightseeker destroy random encounters in as little as two turns, especially if combined with Auto-Spread. Swift Edge is also a great unconditional damage skill all around. The Nightseeker is a party member with plenty of potential, but shines even better with defensive or additional disabling support. A Fortress can assist in drawing attention away from the Nightseeker, and an Arcanist can add to widespread ailment infliction to help a Nightseeker get to work sooner. Etrian Odyssey Nexus Nightseekers have some skill tree reworks to create a branch that focuses on Shadow Cloak, starting with adding new skills that synergize with it, and modifying others to mandate its use. Assassinate now requires the Nightseeker to have Shadow Cloak active to instakill. Enduring Cloak is almost a must to maintain Shadow Cloak to continue to use the skills' added effects. Bear in mind that Shadow Cloak still occupies a buff slot, which can complicate group buff strategies. Their new Force Boost and Force Break are great assets to use. It is not uncommon to open the battle with their Force Boost for the increased ailment success rate so that they can get to work. The sooner the ailment lands, the more the Nightseeker can abuse their damage multipliers on their enemies. The Force Break can deliver incredible damage when their damage multiplier passives are all calculated together, but its applications can get complicated the longer a boss fight drags on, due to accumulated resistance. Nerve Throw and Sleep Throw have switched pages on the skill tree. For those needing to keep a boss locked down for as long as possible, the Nightseeker will have to make do with the blinding ability of Sand Throw until level 20. Their Proficiency skill is now a great skill point sink, requiring a whopping 10 points to max out - gradual investment over time to keep the Nightseeker's damage output competent is encouraged. Blade Flurry is less effective now that Follow Trace's second hit no longer scales with Blade Flurry investment. It would be wise to just invest enough to unlock Follow Trace. Follow Trace's second activation, however, no longer imposes a damage penalty, allowing a Nightseeker to randomly double their damage output, provided they're attacking an ailing enemy. Swift Edge has been similarly buffed. It now inflicts 3-5 hits normally, but now can scale up to 9 hits if used on an ailing enemy, which makes it great for any strategies focused on multi-hit skills. Between Shadow Bite and Swift Edge, Shadow Bite delivers more consistent damage, but Swift Edge offers greater potential in exchange for greater variation. Swift Edge is excellent for synergies with Link-focused Landsknechts, while Shadow Bite delivers great numbers with sleep-bombing setups. Skill Tree Despite the class description implying otherwise, the Throw skills can be used while wielding any weapon. Etrian Odyssey 4 Novice = |-| Veteran = |-| Master = Etrian Odyssey Nexus Novice = |-| Veteran = |-| Master = Subclassing EO4 = Subclasses for Nightseekers Nightseekers subclass well into many classes. *'Landsknecht': Due to the high innate speed of Nightseekers, Nightseekers can immediately gain the advantage of establishing Links for the rest of the party to trigger without needing to set up Vanguard, and enjoy the bonuses of Initiative and Power Boost to hit even harder. Swordbreaker, Iron Wall and Weapon Parry allow for dual-wielding Nightseekers to offset their slightly low durability. *'Sniper': For backrow Nightseekers, Sniper skills offer two different types of builds. One allows a Nightseeker to dual-wield bows and land many normal attacks with a good critical chance due to Bullseye and Power Boost. Another allows a Nightseeker to both bind and inflict ailments with bows and knives by capitalizing on their high Agility and Luck. *'Dancer': Sword Dance and Mist Dance, when combined with their innate Blade Flurry skill, results in multiple hits and stuns at once - particularly if triggered off a Chase Samba or Rush Dance, and the damage can only go higher if an ailment gets inflicted on the way. Note that stunning with Mist Dance will not trigger Foul Mastery or the Nightseeker's class passives. *'Arcanist': While Circles may seem to be an easy way to repeatedly attempt ailments multiple times across many turns, Ailment Boost and TP Return are prime skills to attain due to the increased ease in crippling enemies with ailments without much net loss in TP, allowing a Nightseeker/Arcanist to be nearly indefinitely sustainable during long dungeon trips. Releasal Spell, while expensive, also allows for re-application of ailments and binds during a long boss fight to maintain and even improve the Nightseeker's DPS. *'Bushi': Charge, Blood Surge, Power Boost and Defiance drastically raise the base offensive power of dual-wielding Nightseekers, especially when used to boost the strength of Swift Edge through the roof. When combined with the Nightseeker's own Foul Mastery and class skills, they can absolutely destroy any enemy afflicted with ailments. Ferocity also allows a Nightseeker to sustain themselves when attacking twice with Blade Flurry, and Deep Breath can easily restore TP lost to Blood Surge. *'Imperial': Drive Blades cannot be dual-wielded, but the Drive skills offer ridiculous burst damage, especially if it has been boosted by Foul Mastery and doubled up with Follow Trace. In between, the Nightseeker's own Sword skills can still be used while holding a Drive Blade, so they can follow through with Swift Edge, Ice Knife, Assassinate or Shadow Bite. Power Boost also exists to raise their base damage. Nightseeker as Subclass Nightseeker is a highly desirable subclass as well, usually only due to their Blade Flurry and Follow Trace skills allowing for units to attack multiple times in one turn. *Dual-wielding Bushi and Landsknechts go for this class specifically for Blade Flurry which raises their offensive ability since they will strike with both weapons and have skills that grant bonuses for dual-wielding. Speed Boost also offers them better accuracy, evasion, and turn speed. *'Dancers' benefit from dramatically increased offensive power and access to both special attacks, status knives, and the ability to combine Blade Flurry with Sword Dance and Mist Dance for anywhere between 2 to 8 normal attacks, each with a chance to stun the target. *'Arcanists' can gain access to specific status effects they otherwise couldn't get (such as Curse and Blind), and attack boosts for inflicting status effects should they have managed to invest enough skill points to attain Foul Mastery. *'Imperials' seek this class specifically for Follow Trace - this skill can allow Drive skills to hit twice and allow more mileage from cooldown skills, getting two reductions for the price of and in the time space of one. Swift Edge is also an appreciable, if expensive, multihit skill to take up. |-| EON = Subclasses for Nightseeker Nightseekers are incredibly fast and have good Luck growth, but they ironically lack any skill to improve their odds of landing ailments. Correcting this with a subclass that has Status ATK Up becomes utmost priority for most Nightseekers. *'Gunner' subclass is for Nightseekers that operate mostly in the back row. The Nightseeker's reasonable STR and LUC stats make for good binding chances off the Snipe skills, and the Charge attacks, even at half level, are powerful non-situational damage sources that are on par with a max-strength Shadow Bite and average-strength Swift Edge. Combine Multi-Shot with Follow Trace and you can get incredible numbers with a good roll. Investment in Shadow Cloak can help mitigate the Charge shot defense penalty. *'Ninjas' first come to mind due to both classes being similarly quick but fragile characters focused on inflicting ailments. Mystic Calm offers a slight TP discount that makes their Throw skills nearly free, and Concealment raises evasion to offset their fragility. Beheading also synergizes really well with the dual attacks off Blade Flurry, albeit at a very low instant kill rate. Between the Nightseeker's kit and Izuna and Ninpo: Panic, this class combination can access every kind of ailment for conditional drops. *The Shogun aid the dual-wielding Nightseeker with several passives. Second Sword is a definite must to mitigate the Nightseeker's frailty on the front lines, and Peerless Demon can dramatically improve the strength of the Nightseeker's Swift Edge hits once they roll past 5 hits on an ailing enemy. Bolt Slash and Morning Star give some degree of area control, and 5-Ring Sword is a better multi-hit skill on non-ailing enemies. Using a katana in the main weapon slot also greatly increases the Nightseeker's own base damage. *'Landsknechts' offer Initiative and Proficiency that synergize perfectly with the Nightseeker's unparalleled speed, letting them lead the team's assault as well as a Landsknecht main would without needing to spend a turn on Vanguard. Single Devotion also gives a nice 10% damage boost to almost everything in the Nightseeker's kit. It's great for Nightseekers focusing on damage. *'Arcanists' provide TP Return to give them better TP sustainability during a long dungeon trek and are another source of Status ATK Up. Their Circle skills let the Nightseeker access area-of-effect binds and ailments, but be mindful of the skill point investment needed to push them to efficiency. *'Pugilists' are taken for their support skills - Adrenaline gives TP restoration to keep the Nightseeker fresh when their Throw skills land, and Meditation offers a greater infliction boost than Spread Throw ever will, which is great for disabling single targets. Raging Billows stacks with the Nightseeker's own damage passives which lets them utterly murder bound and ailing bosses if your party can back up with binding support. Million Rush can combo with Blade Flurry for a standard attack that can hit up to 8 times, a combo great for triggering many Link follow-ups. *'Harbingers' have Reap skills to also allow a Nightseeker to inflict ailments to entire rows and forgo investment in advanced Throw skills or Spread Throw. Miasma Armor shoots the Nightseeker's speed through the roof, all but guaranteeing they'll go first in a combat round. If skill points permit, Wilting Miasma also reduces enemy resistance to ailments, letting the Nightseeker cripple the enemy with more efficiency. Nightseeker as Subclass Unlike in Legends of the Titan, the Nightseekers' Follow Trace now restricts itself to triggering on ailing enemies, requiring the party to have some form of ailment support before the player can use it well. However, some classes still benefit from having a Nightseeker around. *A War Magus takes the Nightseeker subclass for a more reliable source of ailments for cheap, using their Throw skills. Proficiency is also important as it stacks with the damage bonus from Ailing Slash to thoroughly gut anything with an ailment. Ice Knife also lets the War Magus access elemental damage for striking weaknesses. *'Ninjas' with a Nightseeker subclass, compared to the inverse, exchange incredible damage output for the ability to inflict ailments with greater accuracy. While they don't get as much damage off Blade Flurry, Beheading has a higher base chance of activating for easier instant kills. The Throw skills give the Ninja access to a wider variety of ailments, and the Nightseeker's various bladed weapon skills add to the Ninja's offensive repertoire. *'Pugilists' with a Nightseeker subclass have the potential to deliver a devastating combo. On a fully bound and ailing enemy, proccing Follow Trace on the Pugilist's own Leading Blow can deliver an amazing eight hits for a great Lash Out. Proficiency can also amplify the damage the Pugilist does after they land paralysis with a stray Corkscrew. Speed Up also allows them a better chance to bind enemies before they can act. Dual-wielding Pugilists can combo Blade Flurry with their Million Rush to potentially do 8 hits with a normal attack, which builds up to an impressive Lash Out combo. *'Harbingers' may have a lot of their skill tree focused toward their Deathguard versions, but a Nightseeker subclass can push them back towards their Deathbringer role from their home game. Their own skills can inflict ailments en masse, but the Throw skills offer a way to inflict them to single targets without spending much TP. Proficiency and Foul Mastery are important skills to raise their offensive power, and they can use Follow Trace to great effect. Category:Etrian Odyssey IV Classes Category:Etrian Odyssey IV Category:Etrian Odyssey Nexus Classes